Our top 10 winners

It’s the New Year and, in addition to cleaning our closets, making new lists of resolutions, buying the latest exercise clothes, and starting new chapters, some of us have spent the last few days poring over last year’s blog data.  Although this doesn’t sound very sexy, it’s actually really interesting to us because it helps us get to know you better.  We look at which of our blogs you’ve read and clicked on, and use this data to try to understand who you are and what you’re interested in so that we can better tailor our topics to your interests.  (Oh and of course we are never competitive with each other about who wrote the most read blogs!)

So, just like the New York Times does their “best of” every year,  here’s what the Google numbers tell us about you:  You are a wonderful person (OK, I added that!),  possibly our customer, perhaps an artist or art appreciator,  passionate about interior design, drawn to travel, somewhat intrigued by France and you always like a before and after success story!  Your  top ten Huffington favorite blogs in 2018 were (drum roll):

10:  Favorite Outdoor Spaces:

We wrote this one fresh from a buying trip to France in June and we were immersed in the beauty and joie de vie of living in lovely outdoor spaces.  This blog had tips on what makes for a great outdoor space and you told us that you love tips.  Got it!

9.  Huff Harrington Trips to France

This one was published in October after finishing three back-to-back incredibly fulfilling and varied trips to France with the most wonderful “campers” we could ever find.  The high that fueled that blog lasted for many weeks after, and we’re still reliving the memories.

8.  Heritage:

This one came out of our new found love of old art!  In addition to representing 30 or so incredibly talented living artists at Huff Harrington Fine Art, we have discovered some ancient jewels during our travels to France and have started collecting the ones that we love, regardless of provenance or value.  It’s pure love and we can’t stop talking about it!

7.  The Treasure Hunt

“Welcome to our world – and the one we just love.  This is how we begin an antiques fair and we swear, it’s positively addictive.”  And that pretty much summarizes this blog about the joy of finding the diamond in the rough, one-of-a-kind pièce-de-résistance during our trips to France.  We think you liked this one because we paired our finds with your designs, so that you could actually picture the pieces in your own settings.

Similarly, our blog on “Not Your Grandma’s Brown” had the same appeal, because we showed how people with taste, like you, could create a stylish interior using a mix of old and new.

6.  Meet our Gallery Manager:  Linda Mohan

Leenda, Leenda, Leenda – our fabulous Gallery manager and tour group leader extraordinaire scored high points in the blog we did about her.  We love that you love it when we brag about our peeps — and who doesn’t love our Leenda?

5.  Building a Dream House in Provence:

OK, so we admit that we kind of tricked you with this one, and some people might have even been a little disappointed with our surprise ending.  But you confirmed what we love:  Building houses that incorporate a little of this and a little of that from all our favorite designers, especially when it’s done in a beautiful setting.  Ahhh, the dream lives on!

4. Take the Tour:

We were excited that many of you took our virtual tour of Huff Harrington Home and seemed to enjoy the birds eye view of the store.  We admit that we were completely smitten with the phenomenal photography and found ourselves watching it over and over again!  We thank you for indulging us.

3.  Meet Kelli, Susan, Ellen and Ignat

Maybe because we started as an Art Gallery and have a following of artists and appreciators, or maybe because art has a universal appeal, but whatever the reason, whenever we do a blog on an artist, you seem to love it!  In 2018, we introduced three new artists (Ellen Rolli,  Susan Kinsella and Ignat Ignatov) and we had a solo show for Kelli Kaufman, and each time we talked about it, you listened!  Thank you for appreciating our first love, original art.

2.  Emily Followill in Paris:

This blog was an absolute treat for us to write because it was such a privilege to have an amazing photographer join us for a trip to Paris and immortalize it through her refined lens.  She captured every bit of the spirit of our trips and the hardest part of writing the blog was picking our favorite photos — from several hundred to choose from!  This one goes to Emily, with our deepest thanks, and we wish she could accompany us on all of our trips (oh yes, because she’s so much fun too!).

1. Happy Birthday to My Mother:  She’s 100!

And finally, our number 1 blog of the year and your hands down favorite was the lovely tribute Meg wrote of her charming and dynamic mother, Eileen, who just turned 100.  (We posted this picture of Eileen on our Instagram feed and we swear it went viral!)  We appreciated all of your comments on the blog and on Instagram, and we agree — the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!  Meg loved writing this one and we all loved reading it.

So here’s what we learned from you in 2018:  Be honest, be personal, be informative and be kind.  Keep traveling, keep eating, keep painting and most of all, keep having fun …  and maybe we’ll all live to be 100!   Thank you, dear readers, for your feedback and support, and especially for keeping us motivated todo what  we love.

Happy New Year!

Ta ta,

HH

P.S.  I know you don’t love it when we sell (we forgot to mention that!), but we do want to invite you to our most popular show at the gallery:  A Grand Affair, opening on January 24th.  We love swathing the gallery with paintings that are priced (mostly!) under a $1,000.